Sometimes...Life bites back

So, this past week was packed full of excitment but generally not the kind of excitement one seeks out. Bad lack was the theme and I was the poor unfortunate protagonist. It started out Tuesday evening when a customer discovered they had pumped diesel into their unleaded SUV. So I went to seek out gas jugs and hose. I knew there was an assortment of hose sitting atop an old truck topper that was lying in the grass. I was sorting through the hose when suddenly I felt a bite on my bicep. I looked down expecting find a Crimtoad a.k.a. Sawyer Beetle but instead there was a yellow jacket. And following that advance scout was a swarm of yellow jackets boiling up my legs from the ground. I thought a retreat was in order and so I fled at full speed laughing all the way. They didn't pursue and I was stung a mere two times. Later in the evening I returned to the site of my retreat with jacket, gloves, head net, and wasp killer. The nest was hanging from the ceiling of the topper just inside the rear hatch. I forced open the front window of the topper and hosed down the nest with a full can of the wasp killer. Eliminating my enemy from existence.



Wednesday went by without issue as well as most of Thursday. Thursday night however, just about closing time I was walking through the kitchen and slipped on a wet floor. Feet flew out from under me and I came crashing to the floor, slamming against the wall behind me. Said wall unfortunately is home to quite possibly the only magnetic knife rack within 120 miles. The force of the fall brought over a half dozen kitchen knives crashing down upon me, fortunately missing all vital areas. I did receive one laceration of the left shoulder which flayed the skin back from the fatty undertissue and one puncture wound in the left elbow. The punture wound just happened to be right where the muscles and tendons connect at the elbow and so has been the most painful part of the experience.



The doctor at Urgent Care 3 hours south of our camp at the Yukon River opted not to use stitches and instead go with sterastrips. These are narrow adhesive strips that do basically the same thing as stitches by holding the wound together. I was asking the doctor whether they would stay on and he said they would last at least 7 days and showering would not be a problem as water would simply shed right off the sterastrips. All this the result of the glue he was using to secure the strips to the skin.



Well within 1 hour of leaving Urgent Care the sterastrips were already peeling off. So with a call to my roomates Uncle Frank, the paramedic, we learned that the glue was in fact benzoine (basically iodine) and not a glue at all and that water would most assuredly take the sterastrips right off the skin. My roomates family assisted in replacing the sterastrips with extras the doc did give me and it has been a struggle ever since keeping them on. My final decision is that it is best to go the ER where the doctors at least know the difference between glue and benzoine.